"He fixes the cable?"

Last Friday, was my first Lebowskifest.

Just as if you were to walk into a theater at midnight on a Friday night, see people throw objects at the screen, and wonder, “Why?*”, if you don’t know what the sentence above means, then the rest of this is going to be slightly-to-extremely confusing.

A few weeks ago my friend, Mike, who lives in Houston put an email into the series of tubes and it was delivered to my inbox detailing Houston’s very own Lebowskifest. Now, I thought only Louisville, KY had one, so learning that other cities, especially one close to me and one I like to visit to boot, were participating in the insanity which is The Big Lebowski, thrilled me. Immediately I confirmed my attendance, and we purchased The Big Lebowski t-shirts. This was going to happen…

This story really starts towards the end of the 90’s, round about the time of our conflict with the Lewinski scandal…look alike/sound alike names not withstanding…and the Coen Brothers made a little film by the name of The Big Lebowski. I won’t go into the plot too deeply, because you can do that here, but I will tell you the main characters are The Dude and Walter.

The Dude is…well…The Dude. A laidback post-hippy, The Dude has no job save for smoking pot, bowling, and generally “being”. The Dude gets caught up in a whirlwind of insanity due to his having the same name as a millionaire, Jeffrey Lebowski, and quite the fateful case of mistaken identity sets our story off to a bang. Walter is a Vietnam vet who’s life is completely engulfed in the flames of that conflict…except in the end we find out Walter never went to Vietnam, so what do we make of that? He is loud, profane (everyone is in this world) and more than a little violent, yet caring and protective of his friends.

So hijinks ensue, and blah blah blah if you haven’t seen this movie, you have two choices: See it right now, and watch it twice (you won’t get it the first time; I didn’t) or suicide, because how you get by day to day life without understanding the multitude of Big Lebowski quotes used in the lexicon daily is…amazing.

Now, Lebowskifest is just what it sounds like: fans of the movie gather, drink White Russians (or Caucasians, a favorite beverage of The Dude) maybe bowl a little bit, and watch the movie. At the Houston event, there was also Human Bowling, costume contest (story to come), trivia contest, and a general good time.

On Friday I drive down to H-town, and arrive at just the right time. That would be "enough time to have a Caucasian before we head down to the event-o'clock". We go to the Lucky Strike Lanes in downtown Houston. This is where it all starts. The Lucky Strike Lanes are relatively new in the Houston area, and on first glance it is your regular run of the mill night club/bowling alley. I’m sorry, you don’t have bowling alleys/night clubs in your town? Well, that’s because in theory they are great, but in practice they are retarded. If I wanted to visit a bowling alley with a dress code, then I’d just move to the Jersey Shore right now.

The place is already packed and it’s only 6pm. We are greeted by one of the organizers of the event, a wonderful man from the local St. Arnold’s Brewery (try the Lawnmower!), and informed of the many neato things we can participate in, and we wisely choose our favorite…we make our way to the bar, and get some more Caucasians. At this point I need to tell you that I am wearing blue jeans, my t-shirt, and a thin, tattered robe. Yes, a bathrobe. You see, The Dude wears one, and I thought, why not? Thinking the costume contest aspect of the event wouldn’t be very big, it would be me and 4 other nerds wearing robes. I was wrong. Young and old, men and women, over half of the crowd was wearing a robe. And that’s not to even mention the throngs of Walters, Maudes, a gutterball-girl, a Jackie Treehorn, and a rug. The girl who dressed up as the rug won “Most Creative” mostly due to her friend who would bound up on stage at the very mention of the rug and simulate urinating upon said rug. Using a beer…

Walter and myself...abiding...

We get our drinks and look for a place to await our buzzer, for this buzzer was going to tell us when we could bowl. Almost immediately, a guy dressed as Walter (heretofore referred to as Walter) approached me, looked me in the eyes, shook my hand and told me to go fuck myself. It was perfect. And don’t worry, Walter never really left my life…I think in a way he’ll always be here with me…

So we find a nice couch, and take in the scenery. There is a man in a robe and wig bowling. There is a group of girls out on the town, who seemingly have no clue why all these crazy people are in this bowling alley. There is Walter, telling anyone and everyone they are out of their element and, usually, that they need to shut the fuck up. Then we are reminded that this is some sort of club as well, when a bouncer/security guy/fatass approaches to tell me to please take off my baseball cap…in a bowling alley. Of course, that ran all over me, a dress code in a bowling alley, but I played it cool and we continued to wait. For bowling that never came…

We could never understand why there were open lanes and yet we were still third on the list. How? Why don’t you put numbers one and two in these open lanes here and make us number one on the list? So we left the Lucky Strike lanes (or should I say Lucky Stink Lanes? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I’m so funny, everyone tells me so……) and dined at the House of Blues…where no one could understand why a grown man was wearing a robe while eating a chicken sandwich in public…

Finally, we make our way to the park, where the night will conclude. Discovery Green is near the Toyota Center and the Convention Center in downtown Houston, and I have to say I was impressed. There is a stage in the center, and a band of young people who played exclusively songs from the 60’s were on fire. I approve of such a bold choice, and the crown seemed to as well. So we sat up camp, with folding chairs, broke out the sangria and settled in for a night of awesome…which did not disappoint.

Walter continued to walk through the crowd, yelling at strangers, and generally being a crazy man. Back at the alley, we actually talked to Walter after he told me he owned my shirt…and 6 other Lebowski shirts. Clearly this guy wasn’t working with a full deck…of UNO cards…the guy is nuts, but I loved him.

Soon, the trivia contest had been won in sudden death, and the costume contest had been won by The Rug, Walter, and a Viking Julianne Moore from a dream sequence. (I should tell you a girl entered the contest as Bunny Lebowski, played in the movie by Tara Reid. She did so in a blue bikini, and took the mic at one point telling the audience she would “suck your cock for a thousand dollars”, which in the context of the movie make sense for the character, but for a timid white girl in the middle of a park in Houston, TX, was quite shocking, yet hilarious, of course.) Then it was movie time. The screen was inflated and the picture began, to cheers from the many in attendance. I am no good judge of numbers of people, but I would conservatively say there were between 800 and a thousand people in the park for this movie.

And the audio was fucked…but they fixed it, and we the audience got to bitch and make jokes the whole time. There was bonding with your fellow Lebowski fan, and a general camaraderie. I’ve never been to a convention for anything, so this was really the first time I’ve been in that atmosphere. Where everyone around you is there just to see something they love, where everyone is quoting the movie the entire night, where everyone is downright respectful of the others due to this shared interest. On the basic human level, I was amazed at just how decent everyone was at the event.

"You said it man, no one fucks with the Jesus."

So we all cheered and laughed until midnight when the credits rolled. And as we made our way to the car, we could still hear Walter behind us, telling strangers to shut the fuck up Donny, and if you are wondering why he called everyone Donny, then you really didn’t learn anything from this, did you? Go to your room and think about who you are and what you’ve done with your life.

*Rocky Horror Picture Show, you fucking shut-in. Get a life, you humorless dick.